Are we responsible citizens?

Are we responsible citizens?

After the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) was passed on  December 11, the entire country stood against it and we could see protests taking place everywhere. India is a democratic country and we all have a right to protest for our ‘rights’ which no one can take away from us. However, what matters is how responsible protesters are we?

People have been involved in destroying the public property, burning buses, trains and setting other vehicles on fire. I feel this is not the way to protest. The public property does not belong to politicians or the government but to people funded from the tax money that we pay. The governments will change and the politicians will come and go, but the fact is that ‘we’ are going to be the same and we would obviously need these facilities like trains, buses which are for us.

Another thing is, the police are being blamed for the violence and hence, people have started pelting stones on them and hurting them. I agree that the violence that was carried out against students was totally wrong and unconstitutional but one thing that we are failing to understand here is, these policemen who are there on the roads are just doing their jobs. They are just following the orders given to them by the superiors. Have we thought, there could be so many policemen out there who are equally opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) but just for the sake of duty they are there? Now, with them, forces are also being involved and the same applies to them. They are all just following the orders. How is hurting them going to help anyone out there?

Just on Thursday, we read and saw in different videos that a police constable fell from his vehicle in Gujarat and people just attacked him and started thrashing him. Similarly, people are pelting stones on them and then if they revert on these actions just to save themselves, we are accusing them. Here we should not forget one thing that the same policemen are also helping people organise peace rallies. Just recently in Pune, anti-CAA protestors gathered in a huge number in front of the collector’s office and police without any disturbance helped them in conducting one.

In another incident, a video of a man has gone viral who injured his own hand while hurling a petrol bomb at policemen during a protest in Delhi’s Seelampur area. What are we gaining out of this?
We all know that different political parties are trying to gain out of all this violence and chaos. 

Similarly, Jamia Millia Islamia University (JMIU) Vice-Chancellor Najma Akhtar in a statement claimed that university students have not been involved in these protests instead several outsiders who have entered the premises with fake identity cards have been perpetrating these violent attacks. According to a Zee News report, 750 fake ID cards have been confiscated by guards on the campus. This makes things very clear that all this is being done just to spread violence. Because the students just wanted a peaceful protest and are fighting for their right. And the real essence of protest is losing because of the violence as all attention is now being diverted towards that rather than on the Citizenship Amendment Act.

When spoken to Vinay Malashetti, a techie from Bengaluru about all protests and the overall scenario of the country, he said, “There are ways to express anger and we can’t take law in our hands by destructing public properties. If people are getting influenced by the politicians and resorting to such actions, this needs to stop.”

History shows us that great things can be achieved through the path of non-violence. Mahatma Gandhi too protested for the freedom of the nation, but he always believed in peace and non-violence. This is what we can learn. We can protest as much as we want but in a peaceful manner. This is the time when as a nation, together, we have to find a solution to this problem which could be done in a peaceful manner. Just hurting each other will not help. We have to fight for our rights but in a ‘right’ manner.

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